“Should we do it? Should we try to find Ember? I mean, Umber? Sorry, I get Them mixed up. Baby brain, it’s started already. Seriously, we have to get moving with this because I’m almost in the second trimester here. We’ve got six months.”

One thing about Poppy, she had a can-do attitude. It was one of the things Janet liked about her. Maybe the only thing. Or she guessed Poppy’s hair was all right too.

“But hang on,” Josh said. “What if we do find Umber? What do we do with Him? I mean, you gotta figure He’s pretty far up the power scale. It’s not like we’re going to intimidate Him.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” Janet said. “Maybe we stick Him in Ember’s Tomb. Martin managed to trap Ember in there once, and He couldn’t get out. Seems to me that thing is like a ready-made purpose-built ram-god-containment facility.”

“But it’s risky,” Poppy said. “Could we even get Him in there? Maybe this is all a little precipitous?”

Just then Janet was overcome by the strangest sensation. She felt herself pulled ever so slightly to one side, her whole body, like she was starting to lose her balance. Then the room gave a little bump and jostle, and the feeling was gone again. It affected the others, too, she could see it.

Josh figured it out first.

“The room’s stopped moving,” he said.

Castle Whitespire was built on clockwork foundations that rotated its towers very slowly in a stately, never-ending dance, like the teacups in a really slow, boring carnival ride. They were driven by windmills. Ordinarily you hardly noticed it, but they noticed now, because it had just stopped. As far as she knew Whitespire’s towers had never stood still before, even in the dark times, the worst times.

“Does that answer your question?” Janet said. “This world is falling apart. We have to do something, and this is the only lead we’ve got. I think we’d better use it.”

“I’m just saying, we’re talking about hunting a god here,” Poppy said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

“If it were easy everybody would do it.”

As soon as the tower stopped moving Josh had gone out on the balcony and leaned on the stone railing, looking down. Now Janet and Poppy followed him. Far below tiny people were spilling out of doorways, into the streets and courtyards, staring around them uncertainly, blinking in the late-afternoon sunlight. One by one they stopped and looked up, looked to the three of them, shading their eyes, as if their kings and queens could possibly have any answers.